The Petticoat Men (47 page)
And finally the policeman roughly shook the last package upside down and one last rather grubby gown, Freddie’s yellow satin gown, fell out and lay with all the others. It had been folded up, it was torn, but the policeman lay it out like the others – and there was a sharp shock-noise in the court. The yellow gown looked as if it had old blood – well – well it had a lot of blood in – well in a most inappropriate place on the skirt. I could feel a feeling around me at once – people thought that was
unbelievably shocking
.
Because these were men.
It was my blood.
An editorial in the
Daily Telegraph
stated that it would not be printing some of the Men in Petticoats Trial medical evidence because it was not suitable for a family newspaper. ‘In such a case we do not desire to report more than is really necessary.’
Such information would of course, everybody knew, be found in
Reynolds News
on Sunday if it was required.
Nobody in 13 Wakefield-street required it.
In her home in Chapel-street, Westminster, waiting for a visit from the Prince of Wales, Lady Susan Vane-Tempest, widow, dropped the newspapers and dreamed. She dreamed of Palaces and Kings.
She had followed – she could not attend of course – the present trial in which once again her brother’s name – despite his tragic death from scarlet fever – was still being impertinently mentioned. However, friends attending had reported to her that when the defence started their case, one of the defence lawyers had made a powerful speech regarding Arthur.
‘Do you mean little Mr Roberts who used to be one of my father’s secretaries?’
‘No, no, no!’ Susan’s particular and closest friend, Mrs Harriet Whatman, who filled her in every day after the court closed, had laughed. ‘This is a greatly superior defence team. My dear, Mr Digby Seymour it was who spoke of Arthur – he is defending the pretty boy, he defends only in very important cases. And that Mr Serjeant Parry is there who cross-examines so cleverly and so mercilessly, I swear he made that fat Beadle weep and I would not like to be cross-examined by him on my private life, thank you very much! And dear Sir John Karslake is defending the American consul from Edinburgh, no less – Oh my dear, everyone who is everyone is involved, you know, so they have to have the best barristers, and they all, simply all of them, have to defend the pretty boy if the others – including Arthur – are to be found not guilty. And if there was any disrespect in court, dear Sir Alexander – the Lord Chief Justice, naughty old Sir Alexander whom I have sat next to at Lady Hatton’s – you know him of course, Susan dear – got very strict and cross. Oh but Mr Digby Seymour was most moving about Arthur.’ She picked up one of the strewn newspapers. ‘Look – here it is! Word for word, in
The
Times.
’
Lord Arthur Clinton is dead – aye dead! But he is included in this indictment, and, Members of the Jury, you are trying the living and the dead! And from his grave Lord Arthur Clinton beseeches you to do justice to his memory and to liberate him from the load of infamy which must rest upon him if this young man is convicted.
‘It was
very
moving, darling,’ said all her friends to Lord Arthur’s sister.
As she waited now for her royal lover, Lady Susan Vane-Tempest considered her situation, and her options – for of course she would say nothing to him until this wretched trial was over and the matter forgotten.
She knew – so long as dear, lost Arthur’s name was buried with the end of this trial – that her mother had been right and she had had to be bold.
For she was nearly thirty-two years old.
She dreamed of this child. A son with special – albeit confidential, of course – privileges – and financial security.
She told herself again; she told herself again: the Prince needed her and relied upon her, and was able to talk to her with a confidence and a confidentiality he could not with others. She was from his background and his youth. She was one of the noble families of England; her own father had accompanied the young Prince to Canada, to the United States. She knew the rules. She would
never
be an embarrassment to him.
And he knew that.
It could all be dealt with satisfactorily, and it was already too late for Dr Oscar Clayton and his pomade of roses.
She heard the maid go to the door to open it for the Prince.
She would tell him after the trial.
Or, to be absolutely safe, just a few weeks later.
In his opening speech for the defence, the famous barrister Mr Digby Seymour, Ernest Boulton’s defence lawyer, apart from saying, ‘Lord Arthur Clinton is dead – aye dead,’ also said:
Gentlemen. I say that in a case like this I trust your verdict will establish that the moral atmosphere of England is not yet tainted with the impurities of continental cities, and that free as we are, from our island position, we are insulated from the crimes to which you have had allusion made, and you will pronounce by your verdict – in this case at all events with regard to these facts – that London is not cursed with the sins of Sodom, nor Westminster tainted with the vices of Gomorrah.
This sentiment was printed with approval (and the occasional extra flourish) in many newspapers.
A seventeen-year-old boy in Tooting, who worked as a clerk in an ironmonger’s, could not understand the almost uncontrollable feelings he had for another young boy who carried watering cans and coal scuttles and large rods of iron from the ironmongers to be delivered to addresses near by.
This boy in Tooting read Mr Digby Seymour’s speech.
And then he walked to Blackfriars.
And then he killed himself.
There was no mention of this in either
The
Times
or
Reynolds Newspaper
or indeed in any of the newspapers, for people were always jumping off Blackfriars Bridge.
‘W
AS
THAT
YOU
in the court, Mackie, when I was giving evidence?’
‘I look in sometimes,’ he said in a dry voice. ‘To see how the other half dispense justice. You were impressive!’ All of us were in the kitchen. Mackie turned to Dodo. ‘Who was that bishop in court the first day, Dodo? From the House of Lords.’
‘With the young man?’
‘Yes.’
Everyone looked at Mackie and Dodo, curious. Then Dodo seemed to go off at a tangent. ‘Elijah, you remember in the old days how in the afternoon a gaggle of bishops used to come to the dining room for afternoon tea?’
He nodded. ‘Those prune-cake clericals,’ he said, and Dodo smiled, and then explained to us: ‘That was my name for them – they asked me to put extra prunes in my delicious fruit cake and I understood them to mean it was for their noble bowels,’ and everyone in the kitchen laughed. ‘He was one of them.’
‘D’you know his name?’ said Mackie, quiet.
‘Oh Mackie, I’m an old woman with a failing memory! They all looked the same to me – no wait, I know, he had something to do with Shakespeare.’
‘Shakespeare?’
I saw that Dodo looked at Elijah for help. ‘Dearest, you know, from a Shakespeare play.’
Elijah looked puzzled – and then his face suddenly cleared. ‘Well of course, I should have guessed straightaway. Would the play be
Julius Caesar
, Dodo?’
‘Yes!’ and she laughed at once, remembering. ‘At least I didn’t say Brutus, dearest! That one, Bishop Julius. Of course!’
And Elijah looked at Mackie. ‘Julius. Bishop Julius. She means the old hypocrite who got Billy out of his job. Doesn’t surprise me to hear he’s sitting in court, waiting for a not guilty verdict to celebrate. I always presumed it was him who gave orders for Dodo and me to be thrown out also.’
‘Is that right?’ said Mackie.
‘Ernest mentioned him,’ said Billy, looking at Mackie. ‘Present at one of their – entertainments, remember?’
‘I remember,’ said Mackie.
‘He was the one who first came and told Mr Gladstone about the arrests,’ said Billy. ‘I was in the Prime Minister’s office.’
‘This subject is going to be bleeding banned in my house!’ said Ma, sounding like a warning.
‘Ma,’ I said. ‘It’s nearly over, they’re only allowed a week for the trial and I don’t think any of us are interested in hearing all that old stuff any more. But Mr Tom Dent from Mr Lewis and Lewis, he told me that Ernest’s mother and Freddie’s father are both going to be witnesses for the defence tomorrow. You always said you’d like to meet Ernest’s mother because he was so spoilt. You said she had a lot to answer for.’
‘I think I can live without knowing her after all,’ said Ma. ‘I dont really want to go back there again, Mattie. Let’s be
finished
with this whole damn business for God’s sake.’
‘Ma,’ I said. ‘I wish you’d come with me. It’s Freddie’s father, I’d like to hear what he will say. He must feel so – anxious till it’s over, with one son already doing hard labour for sodomy, he was so troubled when I saw him, poor thing, though I didn’t know everything then and I didn’t understand. But at the end of meeting him I thought that he might actually be – a nice man.’
‘A what?’
‘A nice man,’ I said, louder.
‘Like Freddie.’
‘Ma. When I see Freddie now, when I saw him in court, I just felt so, so sorry for him.’
‘Yes,’ said Ma. And dear old Ma, she sighed. ‘So did I. I was hard on them I expect.’
We went back to Westminster Hall.
‘I just might see you in there,’ said Mackie, who had walked down with us on his way to Blackfriars. He put his hand very gently on Ma’s shoulder as he left, I saw, a tiny loving gesture.
‘Gothic!’ said a lady in an extremely large hat, looking upwards (precariously it seemed to me as a milliner). ‘Nothing less than a masterpiece of Gothic architecture and construction!’
When some people came out we sneaked in at the back, I wriggled down the front a bit so’s Ma could hear better. The defence was in charge now and Ernest’s barrister was talking about Ernest being called Stella.